Re: Older QC reports

In the past I watched it being built. After much cajoling from Borland
people I went and looked at what was being posted. Lots of problem
reports of various quality and not much response from Borland people.

I thought the voting was quite lame because it turns the imporance of a
problem into a popularity contest.

After watching for a while I noticed many reports were not being
addressed in a timely way. It was not even clear that Borland knew
about some of them.

I found a bug in the database access components and reported it. This
bug produced an access violation and so I thought it was pretty
serious. I fully documented it with extracted excerpts from the code
and steps needed to reproduce. It got one vote of 5 for "report
quality".

After about 3 months it was finally posted to the internal db. After
about 6 months a result of "will not fix" (or something similar) was
posted. I gave up watching it at that point.

Once CodeGear was formed I attended an hour of Delphi session and
pointed to this bug as an example of problems with QC. After a bit of
hemming and hawwing Nick acknowledged that it should have been fixed
and would be soon. That was about a year ago and about 4 years after
the initial report.

I don't think the correct status of "Fixed" was ever posted to the
report.

So, you see my experience is, I think, rather typical. Perhaps a bit
unusual in that I actually tried to use the system even though it was a
long, slow, totally frustrating experience.

Now I'm being asked to "try it again!" without any substantive reason
being given as to why it will work better this time other than "we are
really, really trying harder!". Now programmers are an overly
optimistic bunch as a group and I'm at the top of that heap but I feel
REALLY, REALLY burned by this experience. That's why my original post
said it would really take a lot to convince me that QC was working well
again.

I fully understand that if everyone took this position it will fail. I
hope you and everyone at CG fully understand the magnitude of the
problem they face. From what I've seen so far they do not. Because just
urging everyone to give it a try is not nearly enough.

Here's a good example: I heard about the QC SYSOP opportunity and
thought, "OK, that's one way to contribute in a positive way!" so I
went an looked into it. I was immediately turned off by the elaborate
system of levels and what you had to go through to be accepted into the
ranks of volunteers. Too much like a real job interviewing process. Big
turn off.

I'm not talking about the substance of the requirements. I'm talking
about how it is presented. Does not draw me toward it. Instead it
pushes me away.
.

Relevant Pages

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